From jmcadams@primenet.com Mon Jan 27 13:13:55 CST 1997
Article: 5568 of alt.conspiracy.jfk.moderated
Path: news.primenet.com!jmcadams
From: jmcadams@primenet.com (John McAdams)
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy.jfk.moderated
Subject: Stockwell Critique of Files Story - 8
Date: 23 Jan 1997 21:36:08 -0700
Organization: PrimeNet
Lines: 124
Approved: jmcadams@primenet.com
Message-ID: <5c9e7o$2nq@nnrp1.news.primenet.com>
X-Posted-By: jmcadams@206.165.5.111 (jmcadams)
Xref: news.primenet.com alt.conspiracy.jfk.moderated:5568
FROM: John R. Stockwell, 105475,2627
Re: Part VIII, Further Critique
In yet other areas, I found Files's tale, and West's and Vernon's
methodology lacking in credibility.
There seemed to be a pattern of misstatements by Files that were later
corrected after I (and probably others) pointed out to West and Vernon
solid factual errors.
For example:
Files initially said he and Oswald were "palling" around New
Orleans with shipments of fake Thompson's submachine guns in 1961. Oswald
was still in Minsk, that was a full year before he returned to the United
States.
--Files originally said that Nicoletti used a Marlin 7.62 when he
fired into Kennedy's head from the DalTex building. When they told me
this, I reflected. Long ago, hunting in Africa, in the Marine Corps, and
in Vietnam I had not-a-little experience with weapons. While I would no
longer qualify myself as any kind of "expert," I recalled that 7.62 would
seemingly be a military weapon. And I did not recall Marlin ever
producing a military weapon. So I called the Marlin factory. They
confirmed that no such weapon had ever been made by them....but their
30.06 hunting rifle could be reconfigured, I believe they said to hold 5
rounds. I relayed this to Vernon and, a week or so later, sure enough, I
was told, Files reported that he had reflected and remembered that
Nicoletti used a Marlin 30.06 with a modified chamber....
Initially, Files was adamant that he was just a kid, a nobody, and
that the CIA had nothing to do with the "hit" on Kennedy, altho he said he
had trained Cubans for the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, and that David
Atlee Phillips was his "controller." As the story seemed to grow, he
"palled" around with Oswald in Dallas during the week before the
assassination. Phillips set up the contact. However, he was never able
to give any details, or even general description, of his "commo" with
Phillips. Did they communicate by phone? Did Files call Phillips? Vice
vs.? Did they meet? Was Phillips in Dallas? If by phone, was it to
Phillips in Mexico City?, Miami?, Dallas? If face-to-face, where? And
how were the meetings set up?
Over the years, as first West, then Vernon read more deeply into
the assassination and related controversy, Files's alleged CIA legend grew
dramatically. Knight Ridder eventually published Vernon's version of the
Files story. Somewhat out of context, I was quoted as saying that one of
the charming things about Files's story was that he did not aggrandize
himself. THAT WAS TRUE IN THE EARLY VERSIONS. Later, Files repeatedly
hinted that he was more important in the CIA than the researchers might
have realized. He said that he had been in direct contact with Dick Helms
and with the "Joint Chiefs of Staff." He said he had hand-written notes
from the Joint Chiefs of Staff (ordering hits and what-not.)
A colorful part of his story is how he fired one shot with his
Fireball, took the cartridge out, bit down on it, and then left it on the
fence railing. There are several unresolved problems with this. First,
John Rademacher found 2 Fireball cartridges, not just one. Second, Files
did apparently own a Fireball.... but the serial numbers clearly indicated
that it's manufacture substantially post-dated the assassination. And
finally, Joe West was conferring closely with Rademacher a year before he
discovered and met Files. He and I had talked about the practicality of
using a Fireball for a shot from the fence (first postulated by Josiah
Thompson). Joe had photographs of the dented cartridge when he went to
visit Files in prison.
According to Files's chronology, he would have been in Laos with
the 82nd Airborne when he was still 17 years old. No authentication of
his military record has ever been found. Nor does one enlist, go directly
into an elite outfit, and then immediately get assigned overseas to a
sensitive assignment. The boot and basic infantry training of a recruit
takes about a year (I was going through the military training process in
those same years.) Jump school alone is one month, and you had to qualify
to make it.
I realize that the following is an area of raging controversy, but
the ballistics of his firing a mercury-loaded .222 cartridge from a
Fireball into Kennedy's head from close range does not work for me.
First, the Fireball is LOUD. Kicks like a MULE. After you fire
it, it will be pointing UP (not the slightest chance of simultaneously
watching through its scope where the bullet hits, etc.) Essentially, it
fires an M16 round....from a small short-barrel (compared to the M16)
pistol. People below in the sonic cone of the shot would have FELT the
blast. Their ears would have HURT. (Please feel free to go to a pistol
or rifle range and try this with an M16 or comparable rifle--if you do,
the operators of the range may well encourage you to or insist that you
wear headsets to protect the ears from damage--I invite any owners of
Fireballs to comment.) NO ONE BELOW the fence, I believe, would have had
the slightest doubts of the source of a shot from the fence.
This is a powerful weapon, for all its small cartridge. Where did
it go after hitting Kennedy's "left...err, right" temple (per the
confession)? The xrays of Kennedy's brain seem to show the path of a
bullet and minute bullet fragments on the right side, with the left side
intact. Files's .222, mercury load, would surely have wrecked major
damage.
Note that (and again, I am aware of the controversy) the Zapruder
film shows the dramatic blasting open of the right side of Kennedy's head.
Then he rolls fully around to his left until the back of his head is fully
visible to the camera. There IS NO MAJOR DEFECT IN THE BACK OF HIS HEAD
(Yes, I know, I talked to Bob Groden about this years ago.... While he
used the Z. film to dramatize questions about the assassination, leading
the the House Select Committee's hearings, when the film does not confirm
his theories he blithely asserts that it was altered. I do not find this
unsupported, arbitrary selectivity very satisfying.)
Much of Files's story parallels information that is in the
assassination books. Was he a reader? We do not know. But he was (is) a
wannabe writer. I understand that the researchers did obtain possession
of Files's unpublished manuscript of his life in crime.
There is, of course, quite a bit more.... There was a lot of activity
during the 5 years that the Files story was being developed and marketed.
And I repeat my appeal to Mr. Ali, who now owns the story, and to Dick
Clark and the network heads NOT to offer the world another phony
"fictional version" (as Oliver Stone described his own film, JFK) of the
assassination. Why not do a show instead that honestly examines the major
theories....Files, Hugh, Geneva/Roscoe, Oliver Stone's in a way the
readers can read and judge for themselves.